War Between the States about slavery? No way

The Tampa Tribune ^ | April 25, 2011 | Al Mccray

[Iron Munro]

I am responding to a column by Leonard Pitts Jr., a noted black columnist for The Miami Herald, entitled, "The Civil War was about slavery, nothing more" (Other Views, April 15).

I found this article to be very misleading and grossly riddled with distortions of the real causes of the War Between the States. I find it so amusing that such an educated person would not know the facts.

I am a proud native of South Carolina. I have spent my entire life in what was once the Confederate States of America. I am currently associated with Southern Heritage causes, including the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Tampa.

It's been 150 years since brave, patriotic Southerners drove the imperialist Yankee army from Fort Sumter, S.C. It also marked the beginning of the Confederates' fight to expel this foreign army from the entire Southern homeland.

After all these years, there still exists national historical ignorance and lies about this war. The War Between the States was about states' rights — not about slavery.

Remember, the original colonies voluntarily joined the union and never gave up their individual sovereignty. These independent states always retained their right to manage their domestic affairs and to leave this voluntary association at any time.

This voluntary union was for limited reasons such as national defense from the foreign powers, one language, interstate commerce, disputes between the sovereign states and matters of foreign affairs.

When the Southern states tried to leave this union, the Northerners had to put a stop to this. The slavery issue was masterly inserted into the movement of Yankee aggression.

We are a union of independent and sovereign states free to determine our own destiny. This sovereignty is meant to be free of Yankee federal domination and control. This should still be in principle and practice today as it was before the first cannon shots at Fort Sumter.

Slavery of any people is wicked and morally wrong. Domination of one people over another is just as evil and morally wrong.

The facts are that throughout history, just about every race of people has been slaves to another people. Slavery has always been a failed institution and a dark mark in history. One-hundred years before the first slave made it to the auction blocks in Virginia, African kings were running a booming enterprise of selling their own people into slavery. It was also customary that defeated people became slaves.

Slavery as an institution worldwide was coming to an end before the War Between the States. Slavery in America would probably have come to an end within 50 years.

The great eternal lie — that the war was to "free the slaves" — is still being propagandized today by modern spin-makers, schools and even scholars. But the facts are plain and quite evident if you were to take off your Yankee sunglasses.

The Army of the Potomac invaded the South to capture, control and plunder the prosperity of Southern economic resources and its industries. This army also wanted to put a final nail in the coffin of states' rights.

If, and I say this with a big if , the War Between the States was to free the slaves, please answer these simple questions:

Why didn't President Lincoln issue a proclamation on day one of his presidency to free the slaves? Why did he wait so many years later to issue his proclamation? Why was slavery still legal in the Northern states? Before 1864, how many elected members of the imperialist Yankee Congress introduced legislation to outlaw slavery anywhere in America?

The slaves were freed — and only in territories in rebellion against the North — because the Army of the Potomac was not winning the war and Lincoln was fearful of foreign nations recognizing the Confederacy.

The Northern states needed a war to fuel their economy and stop the pending recession. The North needed rebellion in the South to cause havoc in the Confederate states. The North wanted the hard foreign currency being generated by Southern trade.

I hope this year not only marks the celebration of the brave actions of Southerners to evict the Northern Army at Fort Sumter but leads to the truthful revision of history about the war. Future generations should know the truth.

Al Mccray is a Tampa businessman and managing editor of TampaNewsAndTalk.com

[central_va]

You rant on about situations that have nothing to do with my contention that the idea of states leaving the union under any pretext is rather silly

What you think is silly is something would willing die for, just as my Southern ancestors did 150 years ago. You are an amazing statist tool, a real federal boot licker. Not only do you propose bending over for FedGov™, but you prefer we place one hand on each check and pull it open. You may condone squealing like a pig for FedGov™, but not me.

[central_va]

This socialist union is an anathema to a little 'r' republican, these sentiments are expressed beautifully in a song by a great American Patriot,

Major Innes Randolph, C.S.A..

GOOD OL' REBEL SOLDIER listen

Oh, I'm a good old rebel
Now thats just what I am
And for this yankee nation
I do no give a damn.

I'm glad I fit (fought) against 'er (her)
I only wish we'd won
I ain't asked any pardon
For anything I've done.

I hates the Yankee nation
And eveything they do
I hates the declaration
Of independence too.

I hates the glorious union
'Tis dripping with our blood
I hates the striped banner
And fit (fought) it all I could.

I rode with Robert E. Lee
For three years there about
Got wounded in four places
And I starved at Pint (Point) Lookout.

I coutch (caught) the roomatism (rheumatism)
Campin' in the snow
But I killed a chance of Yankees
And I'd like to kill some mo'. (more.)

Three hundred thousand Yankees
Is stiff in southern dust
We got three hundred thousand
Before they conquered us.

They died of southern fever
And southern steel and shot
I wish they was three million
Instead of what we got.

I can't take up my musket
And fight 'em down no mo' (more)
But I ain't a-goin' to love 'em (them)
Now that is serten sho. (certain sure.)

And I don't want no pardon
For what I was and am
I won't be reconstructed
And I do not give a damn.

Oh, I'm a good old rebel
Now that's just what I am
And for this Yankee nation
I do no give a damn.

I'm glad I fought against 'er (her)
I only wish we'd won
I ain't asked any pardon
For anything I've done.

I ain't asked any pardon
For anything I've done...

[mac_truck]

What you think is silly is something would willing die for, just as my Southern ancestors did 150 years ago.

You'd have to put your boots on and stand up first... something you new age secessionist poseurs never seem to get around to.

When will you little bitches stand and fight?

[driftless2]

I have that song in a number of my music books and enjoy playing it every now and then. I’m thinking about writing a follow-up called: “ I Am A Good Old Norske.”

[driftless2]

So when are you leaving that hellhole that is the state of Virginia where you are so miserably oppressed? And where are you going?

[central_va]

More fitting: for you: “I Am A Good Old Nazi, that is what I am, for this silly republic I do not give damn.”

[driftless2]

Remember Godwin’s law or corollary: the first person use Nazi terminology loses the argument. Or has no argument in the first place. And again, when are you leaving Virginia to escape this awful country that is the U.S.A.?

[cowboyway]

When will you little bitches stand and fight?

Fight who, truckstop?

You and your union thug buddies? Not possible. All you union thug boys do is pick on women and children. I suspect that if you saw some Southern men approaching you that would run faster than your forefathers did when they saw Southerners running towards them and heard the Rebel Yell.

How about the federal government? You want us to fight them? Facts are, we are fighting them. We're the last section of the country that is fighting to remain free as opposed to you yankee pansies that walk arm in arm with the big spending libs.

Now why don't you go back to the bowling alley, have a couple of beers, bowl a couple of frames and talk tough with your union thug buddies and let us adults have a conversation here.

[central_va]

Your question shows your complete ignorance to what a republic is and should be. I want Virginia to leave the Union (again), it is FedGov™ that needs to go. Did you order you Lincoln blow up doll yet? It is Coven standard issue, silly one. mac_truck can show you how to inflate it.

[driftless2]

"Lincoln blow up doll"

Just ordered it. I'll send you a picture.

[Who is John Galt?]

When will you little bitches stand and fight?

Bravely said! Bravely said!

(But rather amusing, coming from someone who would immediately cover himself in mustard, if five justices declared he was a ham sandwich... ;>)

[Who is John Galt?]

...my contention that the idea of states leaving the union under any pretext is rather silly.

Your "contention" was not commonly held when the Constitution was being ratified. In fact, the first nine ratifying States seceded from a supposedly "perpetual" union formed under the terms of the Articles of Confederation, and several States specifically reserved the right to withdraw from the new union, when they ratified the Constitution. One respected legal reference of the time noted:

The federal government then, appears to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations, and with each other. Their submission to it's operation is voluntary: it's councils, it's engagements, it's authority are theirs, modified, and united. It's sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up. Each [State] is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of it's functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent.
- St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries, 1803

Another noted:

...If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth to subdue it.

Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the Union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government, or if they should, with the, express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code, and thereby incapacitate themselves from concurring according to the mode now prescribed, in the choice of certain public officers of the United States.

The principle of representation, although certainly the wisest and best, is not essential to the being of a republic, but to continue a member of the Union, it must be preserved, and therefore the guarantee must be so construed. It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on [the State] itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed.

This right must be considered as an ingredient in the original composition of the general government, which, though not expressed, was mutually understood, and the doctrine heretofore presented to the reader in regard to the indefeasible nature of personal allegiance, is so far qualified in respect to allegiance to the United States. It was observed, that it was competent for a state to make a compact with its citizens, that the reciprocal obligations of protection and allegiance might cease on certain events; and it was further observed, that allegiance would necessarily cease on the dissolution of the society to which it was due.

The states, then, may wholly withdraw from the Union...
- William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States, 1829

In short, it is your historical revisionist "contention" that is "rather silly"...

;>)

[driftless2]

You, like every other sovereignist, refuse to answer one quesiton I’ve posed every time these discussions arise: if all states have equal rights, do states created by the federal government after the original thirteen colonies have the right to secede from the country that created them? In short is my state of Wisconsin, made a state in 1848, sovereign and does it have the right to secede?

[central_va]

Yes, next question.

[Who is John Galt?]

You, like every other sovereignist, refuse to answer one quesiton I’ve posed every time these discussions arise...

Actually, you're wrong. I've never refused to answer that question, whether posed by you or any other historical revisionist.

;>)

...if all states have equal rights, do states created by the federal government after the original thirteen colonies have the right to secede from the country that created them? In short is my state of Wisconsin, made a state in 1848, sovereign and does it have the right to secede?

Let's see what the State of Wisconsin had to say:

Resolved, That the [federal] government, formed by the Constitution of the United States was not the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each [State as a] party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.

-Wisconsin State Legislature, March 19, 1859 [General Laws of Wisconsin, 1859, 247, 248.]

Perhaps you recognize the language (or perhaps not). In any case, the State of Wisconsin claimed the right to "judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress" - which quite obviously did not exclude the right of secession. "In short," my answer is yes - in 1859, Wisconsin had the right to secede.

Now, perhaps you would like to provide some historical documentation supporting your "contention" - that the States ratifying the new Constitution intended to prohibit "states leaving the union under any pretext."

Or, perhaps not...

;>)

[phi11yguy19]

yes, by their participation in the voluntary union, all rights delegated to to the central government are delegated by all states. likewise, all rights reserved by any state are reserved by all states as they are not delegated to the central government.

Re: Wisconsin, as a territory, they voted to apply for statehood, drafted their own sovereign state constitution, then were accepted as a state. in 1846 their constitution failed to ratify, then rev 2 was ratified in 1848 and only then were they accepted to the union.

iow, they required their own state constitution to be ratified before being admitted to the union by the other states. "the country that created them"...didn't create jack, thus the difficulty you have with your mythical question all those "sovereignists" fail to answer to your satisfaction.

tough concept, i know, but you'll get it one day.

(if you're at a loss, feel free to go with tublecane's next response..."so what?" seems to work well for him.)

[phi11yguy19]

Re: Wisconsin State Legislature, March 19, 1859 [General Laws of Wisconsin, 1859, 247, 248.]

“So what? You’re just a Lost Causer!” :)

[Who is John Galt?]

“So what? You’re just a Lost Causer!” :)

Hoping the federal government will follow the Constitution (or even its own regulations) IS kind of a lost cause these days, isn't it?

;>)

(But, in my opinion, still worth pursuing... ;>)

[driftless2]

Yeah, I guess the U.S. didn’t really own the territories that eventually became the states of Wisconsin, Iowa, and the others.

[driftless2]

What part of the phrase “more perfect union” don’t you understand? When the states ratified the consitution and broke up the confederation, they consigned themselves to a union. Nowhere in the federal constitution is the right to secession expressed. A number of presidents, including James Madison and Andrew Jackson, said no right to secession exists.